Not so long ago, pink was a colour reserved for little girls. It was the colour of Barbie and bubblegum, of plastic tat that parents were pestered into buying, of pre-teen bedrooms and pocket-money accessories.

Then, suddenly, it was everywhere - and being targeted at grown women. Next month, for instance, sees the launch of Fly Pink, a "boutique airline designed especially for women" which plans to operate from Liverpool's John Lennon airport. The airline will offer flights to Paris for "shopping breaks" in customised pink planes, and, to complete the experience, will also provide pink champagne and complementary manicures before take-off.

Which just underlines the fact that it is now possible for women to experience their entire day in pink. You can work out with a pink yoga mat and weights; adorn your windscreen wipers with pink wiper wings; cook dinner on a pink George Foreman grill and style your hair with hot-pink hair straighteners. You can even see off would-be attackers with a powder-pink Taser gun.

Less than two years ago, Motorola launched a fuchsia mobile phone, the first pink model on the high street. Now there are dozens of pink handsets to choose from. "It really took us by surprise," says Carphone Warehouse marketing director Tristia Clarke. "There have been phones in other colours - a red phone, a blue phone - but they are never as popular as pink."

Surely teenage girls are buying most of them. "Yes, " agrees Clarke, "but it goes right up to mums, and even older."

Name a piece of electronic kit - a stereo, MP3 player or laptop - and there is probably a stomach-churningly girly version of it. If it has a high-spec, titanium finish for the boys, there's bound to be a bubblegum version in the pipeline for women. It is tempting to be grateful for small mercies - at least manufacturers have realised that women buy technology too (although it is obviously to their benefit to do so). Then the full horror hits you.

Susi Weaser, editor of Shiny Shiny, a website about gadgets for women, has had her fill. "I get very cross about it," she says. "Sometimes I just think, 'Do you not think you need to improve the product instead of just making it pink?' When manufacturers are making a product aimed at men, they might make something aimed at businessmen, or early adopters. For women - who make up 50% of the population - it's, 'Oh, we'll just make it a different colour.'" And these products hardly do much for women's credibility. "If you're in a meeting full of men and you get out a pink phone," points out Weaser, "you're probably putting yourself at an even greater disadvantage."

Even the DIY market has seen an invasion of pink products. Take the Pink Toolbox Company. Thirty quid will buy you a plastic box packed with salmon-hued screwdrivers, hammers and pliers - the first products went on sale in November 2005 and last Christmas their website was so busy that more than 75% of products were sold out by the start of December.

"The people who are buying our products aren't young girls - it's the thirtysomethings and up," says Holly Salter, the company's office manager. "We sell to a lot of divorced women." And while there is nothing wrong with tools designed for women, the colour gives bizarrely mixed messages. These tools are clearly aimed at independent, capable women but there is the suggestion that they need to constantly remind themselves of their femininity even when they're hammering a nail.

Why are these products selling so well? When it comes to phones, says Clarke, it is partly because many people have two handsets - a sober business one and another for socialising. Which sounds as though women know that they're being infantilised but don't really care so long as it doesn't affect them professionally.

Of course, some would suggest there are more positive reasons. The recent explosion of pink has been prompted partly by breast cancer charities, who receive a share of the profits from some of these products. But surely one can care about breast cancer without wanting to possess anything in a vibrant rose finish.

In technology, however, there are signs of a backlash. For instance, the Blackberry Pearl, a phone aimed at women, comes in red, white and black. "We're seeing less of the pink stuff, and manufacturers are accepting that women are an important market for technology. They are now beginning to do some research about what women really want," says Weaser. Surely not a moment too soon.